Redefining Mentorship With Angelina Darrisaw

Angelina is the founder and CEO of C-Suite Coach, a groundbreaking career coaching platform that provides acc essible professional development content and resources to diverse, millennial professionals.

Angelina holds an M.A. in Management from Wake Forest University and a Certificate of Coaching from New York University. She also has a B.A. in Political Science from Davidson College. Angelina proudly serves on the board of Youth Communication, as well as the steering committee for the Alvin Ailey’s Young Patrons Circle and has previously served on Wake Forest School of Business’ Development Council. In 2014, she was selected as a Council of Urban Professionals Fellow for exemplary leadership. She is a two-time Top 20 finalist for Miss New York USA and a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.

WHAT GROWING UP WAS LIKE FOR YOU?

Angelina: I’m a native New Yorker originally born and bred in Brooklyn and it’s changed quite a bit since when I was growing up. The area of bed-stuy that I lived in people didn’t even want to go to. My mom is an amazing woman and she also was a single teenage mom when she had me. I actually come from four generations of teenage moms. That was what my college essay was about when I was applying to college. My mom had that fortitude and passion about making sure I wasn’t going to be generation number five. My mom made sure I was disciplined. She had me up early on weekend mornings working on stuff, like I see those memes about moms busting into the kids room and I have like traumatic flashbacks haha.

WHAT WAS THE FIRST JOB YOU HAD OUT OF COLLEGE AND HOW DID THAT AFFECT YOUR TRAJECTORY?

Angelina: That was my mother so I started interning early. As soon as I was 14 I was interning and writing for a newspaper. It was a non-profit newspaper for New York City teens and I’m now on the board of that organization. All throughout high school I was either public policy training, some sort of program or an internship. So by the time I was in college at Davidson as a poli sci major, I had already interned at Bloomberg, ESPN, HBO, Fisher-Price and I didn’t know what I wanted to do. So, I decided to get another degree I went to Wake Forest University for my Master’s.